Charles Sumner centenary, historical address

^0

b^"'^.

'^^^' •^-;.-

>^. ♦ AT -^^

■•\'

^ov^

OCCASIONAL PAPERS NO. 14.

The American Negro Academy

CHARLES SUMNER
CENTENARY

HISTORICAL ADDRESS
BY ARCHIBALD H. GRIMKE.

PRICE 15 CENTS.

WASHINGTON, D. C:

PUBLISHED BY THE ACADEMY.

1 9 If

OCCASIONAL PAPERS.

No,
No.
No.

No.
No.

No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.

No.
No.

I — A Review of Hoffman's Race Trails and Tendencies [out of print]
of the American Negro. KRLLY MILLER.

2 — The Conservation of Races.

\V. E. BURGHARDT DU BOIS 15 cents

3 — (a) Civilization the Primal Need of the Race ; (b)
The .attitude of the American Mind Towards the
Negro Intellect. ALEXANDER CRUMM ELL. 15 cents

4 — A Comparative Study of the Negro Problem.

CHARLES C. COOK. 15 cents

5 — How the Black St. Domingo Legion Saved the Pa-
triot Army in the Siege of Savannah, 1779.

T. G. STEWARD, U. S. A. 15 cents

6 — The Disfranchisement of the Negro.

JOHN L. LOVE. 15 cents

7— Right on the Scaffold, or the Martyrs of 1822.

ARCHIBALD H. GRIMKE. 15 cents

8— The Educated Negro and his Mission.

W. S. SCARBOROUGH. 15 cents

9 — The Early Negro Convention Movement.

JOHN VV. CROMWELL. 15 cents

10 — The Defects of the Negro Church.

ORISHATUKEH FADUMA. [out of print]

II — The Negro and the Elective Franchise: A Symposium
by A. H. GRIMKE, CHARLES C. COOK, JOHN
HOPE, JOHN L. LOVE, KELLY MILLER, and Rev.
F. J. GRIMKE. 35 cents

12 — Modern Industrialism and the Negroes of the United

States. A. II. GRIMKE. 15 cents

13— The Demand and the Supply of Increased EflSciency

in the Negro Ministry. J. E. MOORLAND. 15 cents

Orders for the trade or single copies filled through the
Corresponding Secretary,

J. W. CROMWELL,
i8r5 i3lh St. N. W. Washington. D. C.

OCCASIONAL PAPERS NO. 14.

The American Negro Academy

CHARLES SUMNER
CENTENARY

HISTORICAL ADDRESS
BY ARCHIBALD H. GRIMKE.

PRICE 15 CENTS.

WASHINGTON, D. C:

PUBLISHED BY THE ACADEMY,

19 11

The American Negro Academy celebrated'the centenary of
Charles Sumner at the Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church,
Washington, D. C, Friday evening, January 6, 1911. On
this occasion the program was as follows: "A Mightv
Fortress is our God," by the choir of the church ; In-
vocation, by Rev. L. Z. Johnson, []of Baltimore, Md.; the
Historical address was next delivered by Mr. Archibald H.
Grimke, President of the Academy, after which Justice
Wendell Phillips Stafford made a brief address. A solo, by
Dr. Charles Sumner Wormley, was sung ; Vice-President
Kelly Miller delivered an address. A Poem, "Summer," by
Mrs. F. J. Grimke, was read by Miss Mary P. Burrill. Hon.
Wm. li. Chandler made the closing address; after which
the Battle Hymn of the Republic was sung bj' the congrega-
tion, led by the choir. The benediction was pronounced by
Rev. W. V. Tuunell.

The oil painting of Mr. Sumneriwhich~occupied a place in
front of the pulpit, was loaned by Dr. C. S. W^ormley.

CHARLES SUMNER.

T^VERY time a great man comes on the stage of human
■■-^ affairs, the fable of the Hercules repeats itself. He
gets a sword from Mercury, a bow from Apollo, a breast-
plate from Vulcan, a robe from Minerva. Many streams from
many sources bring to him their united strength. How else
could the great man be equal to his time and task ? What
was true of the Greek Demigod was likewise true of Charles
Sumner. His study of the law for instance formed but a part
of his great preparation. The science of the law, not its
practice, excited his enthusiasm. He turned instinctively
from the technicalities, the tergiversations, the gladiatorial
display and contention of the legal profession. To him they
were but the ephemera of the long summertide of jurisprudnce.
He thirsted for the permanent, the ever living springs and
principles of the law. Grotius and Pothier and Mansfield
and Blackstone and Marshall and Story were the shining
heights to which he aspired. He had neither the tastes nor
the talents to emulate the Erskines and the Choates of the
Bar.

His vast readings in the field of history and literature
contributed in like manner toward his splendid outfit. So too
his wide contact and association with the leading spirits of
the times in Europe and America. All combined to teach
him to know himself and the universal verities of man and
society, to distinguish the invisible and enduring substance of
life from its merely accidental and transient phases and
phenoniena.

He was an apt pupil and laid up in his heart the great
lessons of the Book of Truth. His visit to Europe served to
complete his apprenticeship. It was like Hercules going in-
to the Nemean forest to cut himself a club. The same grand
object lesson he saw everywhere — man, human society,
human thoughts, human strivings, human wrong, human mis-
ery. Beneath differences of language, governments, religion,

4 CHARLES SUMNEU

race, color, lie discerned the underlxin^ hnniaii principle and
passion, which make all race.s kin, all men brothers. In
strange and distant lands he f<^und the human heart with its
friendships, heroisms, beatitudes, the human intellect with its
never ending movement and jM'ogress. He found home, a
common destinj' wherever he found common ideas and aspi-
rations. And these he had but to look around to behold. He
felt himself a citizen of an immense over-nation, of a vast
world of federated hopes and interests.

When the ])lan for this visit had taken shape in his own
mind, he consulted his friends. Judge Story, I'rof. Greenleaf,
and President Quincy, who were not at all well affected to it.
The first two thought it would wean him from his profession.
the last one that Europe would spoil him, "send him back
with a mustache and a walking-stick." Ah ! how little did
they com]irehend him, how hard to understand that this
young and indefatigable scholar was only going abroad to cut
himself a club for the Herculean labors of his ripe manhood.
He went, saw, and conquered. He saw the promised land
of international fellowship and peace, and contjuered in his
own breast the evil genius of war. He came back proud that
he was an American, prouder still that he was a man.

The downfall of the Whigs of Massachusetts, brought
about by a coalition of the Free Soil and the Democratic par-
ties, resulted after a contest in the Legislature lasting four-
teen weeks, in the election on April 24, 1S51, of Charles
Sumner to the Senate of the United States. He was just
forty, was at the meridian of the intellectual life, in the
zenith of bodily vigor and manly beauty. He attained the
splendid position by sheer worth, unrivalled ])ublic service.
Never has ])olitical office, I venture to assert, been so utterly
unsolicited. He did not lift a finger, scorned to budge an
inch, refused to write a line to influence his election. The
great office came to him by the laws of gravitation and char-
acter— to him the clean ot'liand, and l)rave of heart It was
the hour finding the man.

As Sumner entered the Senate the last of its early giants
was leaving it forever. Calhoun had alieady passed away.

CHARLES Sl^MNKR , 5

Webster was in Millard Fillmore's cabinet, and Clay was es-
caping in his own picturesque and pathetic words, "scarred
by spears and worried by wounds to drag his mutilated body
to his lair and lie down and die." The venerable represent-
ative of compromise was making his exit from one door of
the stage, the masterful representative of conscience, his
entrance through the other. Was the coincidence accident or
prophecy? Were the bells of destiny at the moment "ringing
in the valiant man and free, the larger heart, the kindlier
hand, and ringing out the darkness of the land? Whether
accident or prophecy, Sumner's entrance into the Senate was
into the midst of a hostile camp. On either side of the
chamber enemies confronted him. Southern Whigs and
southern Democrats hated him. Northern Whigs and north-
ern democrats likewise hated him. He was without party
affiliation, well nigh friendless. But thanks to the revolution
which was working in the free states, he was not wholly so.
For William H. Seward was already there, and Salmon P.
Chase, and John P. Hale, and Hannibal Hamlin. Under
such circumstances it behooved the new champion of freedom
to take no precipitate step.

A smaller man, a leader less wise and less fully equipped
might have blundered at this stage by leaping too hastily
with his cause into the arena of debate. Sumner did nothing
of the kind. His self-poise and self-control for nine months
was simply admirable. "Endurance is the crowning quali-
ty," says Lowell, "And patience all the passion of great
hearts." Certainly during those trying months they were
Sumner's, the endurance and the patience. First the blade,
he had to familiarize himself with the routine and rules of
the Senate ; then the ear, he had to study the personnel of
the Senate— and lastly the full corn in the ear, he had to
master himself and the situation. Four times he essayed his
strength on subjects inferior to the one which he was carry-
ing in his heart as mothers carry their unborn babes. Each
trial of his parlimentary wings raised him in the estimation
of friends and foes. His welcome to Kossuth, and his tribute
to Jlobert Rantoul proved him to be an accomplished orator.

6 CHARLES SUMNER

His speech on the Public Laud Question eviuced him besides
strong in history, argument and law.

No vehemence of anti-slavery pressure, no shock of
angry criticism coming from home \vas able to jostle him out
of his fixed purpose to speak only when he was ready. Wint-
er had gone, and spring, and still his silence remained.
Summer too was almost gone before he determined to begin.
Then like an Auguat storm he burst on the Senate and the
Country. "Freedom national : slavery sectional" was his
theme. Like all of Mr. Sumner's speeches, this speech was
carefully written out and largely memorized. He was de-
ficient in the qualities of the great debater, was not able us-
ually and easily to think quickly and effectively on his feet,
to give and take hard blows within the short range of extem-
poraneous and hand to hand encounters. Henry Clay and
John Quincy Adams were pre-eminent in this species of parli-
amentary combat. Webster and Calhoun were powerful oppo-
nents whom it was dangerous to meet. Sflmner perhaps never
experienced that electric sympathy and marvellous interplay
of emotion and intelligence between himself and an audience
which made Wendell Phillips the unrivalled monarch of the
anti-slavery platform. Sumner's was the eloquence of indus-
try rather than the eloquence of inspiration. What he did
gave an impression of size, of length, breadth, thoroughness.
He required space and he re<iuired time. These granted, he
was tremendous, in many respects the most tremendous ora-
tor of the Senate and of his times.

He was tremendous on this occasion. His subject furn-
ished the keynote and the keystone of his opposition to
slavery. Garrison, Phillijjs, Frederick Dougla.ss and Theo-
dore D. Weld appealed against slavery to a common human-
ity, to the primary moral instincts of mankind in condemna-
tion of its villanies. The appeal carried them above and
beyond constitutions and codes to the unwritten and eternal
right. Sumner appealed against it to the self-evident truths
of the Declaration of Independence, to the si)irit and letter of
the Constitution, to the sentiments and hopes of the fathers,
and to the early history and policy of the Country which they

CHARLES SUMNER 7

had founded. All were for freedom and against slavery.
The reverse of all this, he contended, was error. Public
opinion- was error-bound, the North was error-bound, so was
the South, parties and politicians were error-bound. Free-
dom is the heritage of the nation. Slavery had robbed it of
its birthright. Slavery must be dispossessed, its extension
must be resisted.

As it was in the beginning so it hath ever been, the
world needs light. The great want of the times was light.
So Sumner believed. This speech of his was but a repetition
in a world of wrong of the fiat : "Let there be light." With
it light did indeed break on the national darkness, such light
as a thunderbolt flashes, shrivelling and shivering the deep-
rooted and ramified lie of the century. That speech struck a
new note and a new hour on the slavery agitation in America.
Never before in the Government had freedom touched so high
a level. Heretofore the slave power had been arrogant and
exacting. A keen observer might have then foreseen that
freedom would also some day become exacting and aggres-
sive. For its advancing billows had broken in the resound-
ing periods and passion of its eloquent champion.

The manner of the orator on this occasion, a manner
which marked all of his utterances, was that of a man who
defers to no one, prefers no one to himself — the imperious
manner of a man, conscious of the possession of great powers
and of ability to use them. Such a man the crisis demanded.
God made one American statesman without moral joints
when he made Charles Sumner. He could not bend the sup-
ple hinges of the knee to the slave power, for he had none to
bend. He must needs stand erect, inflexible, uncompromis-
ing, an image of Puritan intolerance and Puritan grandeur.
Against his granite-like character and convictions the inso-
lence of the South flung itself in vain.

Orator and oration revealed as in a magic mirror some
things to the South, which before had seemed to it like
"Birnam Wood" moving toward "high Dunsinane." But
lo, a miracle had been performed, the unexpected had sud-
denly happened. The insurgent moral sense of a mudsill and

8 CHARLES Sl'MNKR

shopkeepiiig North had at last found \(jice and vent. With
what awakening terror must the South have listened to this
formidable prophecy of Sumner: "The mo\cment against
slavery is from the Everlasting Arm. Kven now it is gather-
ing its forces to be confe.ssed evervwhere. It may not vet be
felt in the high places of office and power ; but all who can
put their ears humbly to the ground will hear and comprehend
its incessant and advancing tread."

This awakening terror of the South was not allayed by
the admission of California and the mutinous execution of the
Fugitive Slave T.aw. The temper of that section the while
grew in conse([uence more unreasonable and arrogant. Worst-
ed as the South clearly was in the contest with her rival for
political supremacy, she refused nevertheless to modify her
pretentions to political supremacy. And as she had no long"
er anything to lose by giving- loose reins to her arrogance and
pretentions, her words and actions took on thenceforth an
ominously defiant and reckless character. If finally driven
to the wall there lay within easy reach, she calculated, seces-
sion and a southern confederacy.

The national situation was still further complicated l)y
the disintegration and chaos into which the two old parties
were then tumbling, and by the fierce rivalries and jealousies
within them of party leaders at the North. All the conditioiis
seemed to favor southern aggression — the commission of
some monstrous crime against liberty. Webster had gone to
his long account, dishonored and broken-hearted. The last
of the three sujjreme voices of the early senatorial splendor of
the republic was now hushed in the grave. As tho.se master
lights, Calhoun, Webster and Clay, vanished one after anoth-
er into the void, darkness and uproar increased apace.

About this time the most striking and sinister figure in
American Party history loomed into greatness. Stephen A.
Douglas was a curious and grim example of the survival of
viking instincts in the moiU-rn office seeker. On the sea of
jjolitics he was a veritable water-dog, daring, unscrui)ulous,
lawless, transcendently able, and transcendently heartless,
'i'he sight of the presidency moved him in much the samtj

CHARLES SUMNER 9

way as did the sight of the elTete and wealthy lands ol' Latin
Europe moved his roving, robber prototypes eleven centuries
before. It stirred every drop of his sea-wolf's blood to get
possession of it.

His "Squatter Sovereignty Dogma" was in truth a pi-
rate boat which carried consternation to many an anxious com-
munity in the free states.

It was with such anally that the slave power undertook
the task of repealing the Missouri Compromise. The organ-
ization of the northern section of the Louisiana Purchase into
the territories of Kansas and Nebraska was made the occa-
sion for abolishing the old slave line of 1820. That line had
devoted all of that land to freedom. Calhoun, bold as he
was, had never ventured to counsel the abrogation of that
solemn covenant between the sections. The South, to his
way of thinking, had got the worst of the bargain, had in fact
been overreached, but a bargain was a bargain, and therefore
he concluded that the slave states should stand by their
plighted faith until released by the free. That which the
great Nullifier hesitated to counsel, his disciples and succes-
sors dared to do. The execution of the plot was adroitly
committed to the hands of Douglas, under whose leadership
the movement for repeal would appear to have been started
by the section which was to be injured by it. Thus the
South would be rescued from the moral and political conse-
quences of an act of bad faith in dealing with her sister
section.

The Repeal fought its way thiongh Congress during tour
stormy months of the winter and spring ot 1S54. Blows fell
upon it and its authors fast and furious from Seward, Chase,
Wade. Fessenden, Giddings and GenitSniiih. But Sumner
was the colossus of the hour, the fiaming swoid of his section.
It was he who swung its po.ulerous broadsword and smote
plot and plotters with the terrible strength of the northern
giant. Such a speech, as was his "Landmarks of Freedom,"
only great national crises breed. It was a volcanic upheaval
of the moral throes of the times, a lavatide of argument, ap-
peal, history and ehxiuence. The august rights and wrath of

lo CHARLES SUMNER

the northern people flashed and thundered along its rolling

jieriods.

"Accomplish thou my manhood and thyself," is the cry
of humanity ringing forever in the soul of the reformer. He
must needs bestir himself in obedience to the high behest.
The performance of this task is the special mission of great
men. It was without doubt Sumner's, for he stood for the
manhood of the North, of the slave, of the Republic. For
this he toiled strenuously all his life long. It shines in every
paragraph of that memorable speech, and of the shorter one
in defence of the New England clergy made at midnight on
that l)lack Thursday of May, which closed the bitter struggle
and consummated the demolition of the old slave wall.

From that time Sumner's position became one of con-
stantly increasing peril. Insulted, denounced, menaced by
mob violence, his life was every day in jeopardy. Hut he did
not flinch nor falter. Freedom was his master, humanity his
guide. He climbed the hazardous steps to duty, heedless of
the dangers in his way.

His collisions with the slave leaders and their northern
allies grew thenceforth more frequent and ever fiercer.
Kvery motion of his to gain the floor, he found anticipated
and oppo.seed by a tyrannous combination and majority, bent
on depriving him of his rights as a senator. \Vherever he
turned he faced growing intolerance and malignity. It was
only by exercising the utmost vigilance and firmness
that he was able to snatch for himself and cause a hearing.
Under these circumstances all the powers of the man became
braced, eager, alert, determined. It was many against one,
but that one was a host in himself, aroused as he then was,
not only by the grandeur of his cause, but also by a keen
sense of i)ersonal indignity and persecution. Whoever else
did, he would not submit to senatorial insult and bondage.
His rising temper began to thrust like a rapier. Scorn he
matched with scorn, and pride he pitted ag^Iinst jiride. Asa
regiment bristles with bayonets, so bristled his speech with
facts, which thrust through and through with the merciless
truth of history the arrogance and jiretentions of the South.

CHARLES SUMNKR li

His sarcasm was terrific. His invective had tlie ferocity of
a panther. He upon whom it sprang had his quivering flesh
torn away. It was not in human nature to sufter such lacer-
ations of the feelings and forgive and forget the author of
them. The slave leaders did not forgive Sumner, nor for-
get their scars.

Meanwhile the plot of the national tragedy fast thickened,
for as the Government at Washington had adopted the "Squat-
ter Sovereignty" scheme of Douglas in settling the territo-
rial question, the two sections precipitated their forces at
once upon the debatable land. It was then for the first time
that the two antagonistic social systems of the union came
into physical collision. Showers of bullets and blood dashed
from the darkening sky. Civil War had actually begun.
The history of Kansas during this period is a history of fraud,
violence and anarchy. Popular sovereignty, private rights
and public order were all outraged by the Border Ruffians of
Missouri and the slave power.

At this juncture Sumner delivered in the senate a phi-
lipic, the like of which had not before been heard in that
chamber. His "Crime against Kansas" was another one of his
speeches crisis born. It was an outbreak of the explosive
forces of the long gathering tempest, its sharp and terrible
lightning flash and stroke, the sulphurous vent of the hot
surcharged heart of the North. More than one slave champ-
ion encountered during its delivery his attention, and must
have recoiled from the panther-like glare and spring of his in-
vective and_^rejoinder. Senator Arthur'?. Butler of South
Carolina was, on the whole, the most fiercely assaulted
of the senatorial group. His punishment was indeed mer-
ciless. Impartial history must, however, under all the cir-
cumstances of the case, I think, adjudge it just. In that
memorable struggle the Massachusetts chieftain used upon
his foes not only his tomakawk, but also his scalping knife.
No quarter he had received from the slave power, and none
now he gave to it or its representatives.

Such a terrible arraignment of the slave power in general,
and of Senator Butler in particular demanded an answer. To

12 CHARLES ST'MNER

It, that power liael but one replw \iolcnce, llie reply which
wrong ever makes to right. And this Preston S. Brooks made
two days after its delivery. Mr. Sumner pursuatit to an earlv
adjournment of the Senate on an announcement of the death
of a meml^er of the lower house, was busy at his desk i)repar-
ing his afternoon mail, when Brooks, (who by the way was a
ue])hew of Senator Butler) stepping in front of him and with
hardly a word of warning, struck him on the head a succes-
sion of quick murderous blows with a stout walking-stick.
Da/.ed and stunned, but impelled by the instinct of self-defense,
Mr. Sumner tried to rise to grap])le with his assailant, but the
seat under which his long legs were thrust held him prisoner.
Although fastened to the floor with iron clamps, it was finall\'
wrenched up by the agoni/.ed struggles of Sumner. Thus re-
leased, his body bent forward and arms thrown up to protect
his bleeding head, he staggered toward Brooks who continued
the shower of blows until his victim fell fainting to the no(jr.
Not then did the southern brute stay his hand, but struck
again and again the prostrate and now insensible form of Mr.
Sumner with a fragment of the stick.

In the midst of this frightful .scene where were the over-
turned desk, pieces of the broken .stick, scattered writing
materials, and the bloodstained car]K-t, lav that noble figure
unconscious alike of pain and of his enemies, and of the aw-
ful horror of it all. There he lay in the senate chamber of
the Re])ublic with l)lood on his head and face ami clothing,
with blood, now martxr's bhxxl, running from many wounds
and sinking into the floor. Ohl the i)it\- of it, Init the sacri-
ficial grandeur of it also I He was presently succoreii by
Henry Wilson and other faithful friends, and borne to a sola
in the lobby of the Senate where doctors dressed his wounds,
and thence l:e was carrie<l to his lodgings. Theie suffering,
bewildered, almost speechless, he spent the first night of the
tragedy and of his long yeais of martyrdom.

<)n the wings of that traged\- Sumner rose to an enduring
])lace in Ihe jjanllieon of the nation. His life became thence-
forth .associated with the Weal of Slates, his fate with the ft)r-

CHARLEvS vSUMNER i^

tunes of a great people. The toast of the A\itocrat ot the
Breakfast Table at the banquet of the Massachusetts Medical
Society about this time gave eloquent expression to the gen-
eral concern : "To the Surgeons of the City of Washington :
God grant them wisdom! for they are dressing the wounds of
a mighty empire, and of uncounted generations." The mad
act of Brooks had done for Sumner what similar madness had
done for similar victims — magnified immensely his influence,
secured forever his position as an imposing, historic figure.
Ah! it was indeed the old, wonderful story. The miracle of
miracles was again performed, the good man's blood had
turned into the seed-corn of his cause.

No need to retell the tale of his long and harrowing fight
for health. There were two sprains of the spine, besides the
terrible blows on the head. From land to land, during four
years, he passed, pursuing "the phantom of a cup that comes
and goes." As a last resort he submitted himself to the treat-
ment by fire, to the torture of the Moxa, which Dr. Brown-
Sequard pronounced "the greatest suffering that can be in
flicted on mortal nian.^' His empty chair, Massachusett-s,
great mother and nurse of heroes (God give her ever in her
need and the Country's such another son) would not fill.
Vacant it glared, voicing as no lips could utter her elo([uenl
protest and her mighty purpose.

The tide of history and the tide of mortality were running
meanwhile their inexorable courses. Two powerful parties,
the Whig and the American, had foundered on the tumultu-
ous sea of public opinion. A new political organization, the
Republican, had arisen instead to resist the extension of slave-
ry to national territory. Death too was busy. Preston S.
Brooks and his uncle had vanished in the grave. Harper's
Ferry had become freedom's Balaklava, and John Brown had
mounted from a Virginia gallows to the throne and the glory of
martyrdom. Sumner was not able to take up the task which
his hands had dropped until the troublous winter of 1859-60.
Those four fateful years of suffering had not abated his hatred
of slavery. That hatred and the Puritanical sternness and

14 CHARLES SUMNER

intolerance oi" his nature liad on the contrary intensified his
temper and purpose as an anti-slavery leader. He was then
in personal appearance the incarnation of iron will and iron
convictions. His body nobly planned and proportioned was
a fit servant of his lofty and indomitable mind. All the
strength and resources of both he needed in the national em-
ergency which then confronted the Republic. For the su-
preme crisis of a seventy years' conflict of ideas and institu-
tions was at hand. At every door and on every brow sat
gloom and apprehension.

There was light on but one difficult way, the way
of national righteousness. In this storm-path of the
Nation Sumner planted his feet. Thick fogs were before and
above him, a wild chaotic sea of doubt and dread raged around
him, but he hesitated not, neither swerved to the right
hand nor to the left. Straight on and up he moved, calling
through the rising tumult and the fast falling darkness to his
groping and terrified countrymen to follow him.

Nothing is settled which is not settled right, I hear him say-
ing, high above the breaking storm of civil strife. Peace, ever
enduring peace, comes only to that nation which puts down sin^
and lifts up righteousness. Kansas he found still denied admis-
sion to the Union, he presented her case and arraigned her
oppressors, in one of the great speeches of his life. Where-
ever liberty needed him, there he was, the knight without
fear or reproach. From platform and press and Senate he
flung himself, during those final decisive months of i860, into
the thickest of the battle. No uncertainty vexed his mind
and conscience. Whatever other questions admitted of con-
ciliatory treatment he was sure that the slavery (juestion ad-
mitted of none. With him there was to be no further com-
promise with the evil, not an inch more of concessions would
he grant it. Here he took his stand, and from it nothing and
no one were able to budge him. If disunion and civil war
were crouching in the rough way of the Nation's duty, the
Republic was not to turn aside into easier ways to avoid them.
It should on the contrary, regardless of consequences, seek to
re-establish itself in justice and liberty. *

CHARLBS SUMNKR 15

He recognized, however, amid the excitement of the
times with all his old-time clarity of vision the constitutional
limitations of the Reform. He did not propose at this stage
of the struggle to touch slavery within the states, because
Congress had not the power. To the utmost verge of the
Constitution be pushed his uncompromising opposition to
it. Here he drew up his forces, ready to cross the Rubicon
of the slave-power whenever justificatory cause arose. Such
he considered to be the uprising of the South in rebellion.
Rebellion with him cancelled the slave covenants of the Con-
stitution and discharged the North from their further ob-
servance.

He was at last untrammelled by constitutional conditions
and limitations, was free to carry the War into Africa. "Car-
thago est delenda" was thenceforth ever on his lips. Mr.
Lincoln and the Republican party started out to save the Union
withslavery. It is the rage now, I know, to extol hismarvel-
lous sagacity and statesmanship. And I too will join in the
panegyric of his great qualities. But here he was not infallible.
For when he issued his Emancipation Proclamation, the
South too was weighing the military necessity of a similar
measure. Justice was Sumner's .solitary expedient, right his
unfailing sagacity. Of no other American statesman can
they be so unqualifiedly affirmed. They are indeed his peculiar
distinction and glory. Here he is the transcendent figure in
our political history. And yet, he was no fanatical visionary,
Utopian dreamer, but a practical moralist in the domain of
politics. When president and party turned a deaf ear to him
and his simple straightforward remedy to try their own, he
did not break with them. On the contrary foot to foot and
shoulder to shoulder he kept step with both as far as they
'went. Where they halted he would not stop. Stuck as the
wheels of State were> during those dreadful years in the mire
and clay of political expediency and pro-slavery Huukerism,
he appealed confidently to that large, unknown quantity of
courage and righteousness, dormant in the North, to set the
balked wheels again moving.

i6 CHARLKS SUMNER

An ardent Peace advocate, he nevertlieless threw liiniself
enthusiastically into the uprisins^ against the Disunionist.
Xot to fight then he saw was but to jirovoke more horrible
woes, to prevent which the man of Peace j^reached war, un-
relenting war. He was Anglo-Saxon enough, Puritan and
student of history enough to be sensible of the efficacy of
blood and iron, at times, in the cure of intolerable ills. But
liis was no vulgar war for the mere ascetidancy of his section
in the Union. It was rather a holy crusade against wrong
and for the supremacy and perpetuity of liberty in America.

As elephants shy and shuffle before a bridge which they
are about to cross, so performed our saviors before emanci-
pation and colored troops. Emancipation and colored troops
were the powder and ball which Providence had laid by the
side of our guns. Sumner urged incessantly upon the admin-
istration the necessity of pouring this providential l^roadside
into the ranks of the foe. This was done at last and treason
staggered and fell mortally hurt.

The gravest problem remained, howexer, to be solved.
The riddle of the southern sphinx awaited its Oedipus. How
ought local self-government to be reconstituted in the old
slave states was the momentous question to be answered at
close of the war. Sumner had his answer, others had their
answer. His answer he framed on the simple basis of
right. No party considerations entered into his straightfor-
ward purpose. He was not careful to enfold within it any
scheme or suggestion looking to the ascendancy of his section.
It was freedom alone that he was solicitious of establishing,
the supremacy of democratic ideas and institutions in the
new-born nation. He desired the ascendancy of his section
and party so far only as they were the real custodians o
Jiational justice and progress, (iod knows whether his plan
was better than tlie plans of others except in simpleness and
l)urity of aim. Lincoln had hisplan, John.son his, Congress its
(Avn. Sumner's had what appears to me nii^ht have evinced
it, on trial, of superior virtue and wisdom, namely, the
clement of time, indefinite time as a factor in the work of re-
construction. But it is impossible to si)eak jiositively on this

CriARLES SUMNltR 17

point. His scheme was rejected and all discussion of it l)e-
comes therefore nugator3^

Negro citizenship and suffrage he championed not to save
the political power of his party and section, but as a duty
which the republic owes to the weakest of her children because
of their weakness. Equality before the law is, in fact, the
only adequate defense which poverty has against property in
modern civilized society. Well did Mr. Sumner understand
this truth, that wrong has a fatal gift of metamorphosis, its
ability to change its form without losing its identity. It had
shed in America, Negro slavery. It would reappear as
Negro serfdom unless placed in the way of utter extinction.
He had the sagacity to perceive that equality before the law
could alone avert a revival under a new name of the old slave
power and system. He toiled therefore in the Senate and on
the platform to make equality before the law the master prin-
ciple in the social and political life of America.

As his years increased so increased his passion for justice
and equality. He was never weary of sowing and resowing
in the laws of the Nation and in the mind of the people the
grand ideas of the Declaration of Independence. This entire
absorption in one loftly purpose lent to him a singular aloof-
ness and isolation in the politics of the times. He was not
like other political leaders. He laid stress on the ethical side
of statesmanship, they emphasized the economical. He was
chiefly concerned about the rights of persons, they about the
rights of property. Such a great soul could not be a partisan.
Party with him was an instrument to advance his ideas, and
nothing more. x\s long as it proved efficient, subservient to
right, he gave to it his hearty support.

It was therefore a foregone conclusion that Sumner and
his party should quarrel. The military and personal charac-
tor of General Grant's first administration furnished the casus
belli. These great men had no reciprocal appreciation the
one for the other. Sumner was honest in the belief that
Grant knew nothing but war, and quite as honest was Grant
in supposing that Sumner had done nothing but talk. The
breach, in consequence, widened between the latter and his

iS CHARLES SUMNER

pari)- for it naluially enough espoused the cause of the Pres-
ident.

Sumner's im])osing figure grew more distant and com-
panionless. Domestic unhappiness" too was eating into his
proud heart. His health began to decline. The immedica-
ble injury which his constitution had sustained from the as-
sault of Brooks developed fresh complications, and renewed aU
of the old bodily suffering. A temper always austere and im-
perious was not mended by this harassing combination of ills.
Alone in this extremity he trod the wine-press of sickness and
sorrow. He no longer had a party to lean on, nor a state to
support him, nor did any woman's hand minister to him in
this hour of his need. He had left to him nothing but his
cause, and to this he clung with the pathos and passion of a
grand and solitary spirit. Presently the grass-hopper became
a burden, and the once stalwart limbs could not carry him
with their old time ease and regularity to his seat in the
Senate, which accordingly became frequently vacant. An
overpowering weariness and weakness was settling onthedv-
ing statesman. Still his thoughts hovered anxiously about
their one paramount object. I^ike as the eyes of a mother
about to die are turned and fixed on a darling child, so turn-
ed his thoughts to the struggling- cause of human brother-
hood and equality, l-or it the great soul would toil yet a
little longer. But it was otherwise decried, and the illustri-
ous Defender of Humanity passed away in this city March
I I, 1874, leaving to his country and to mankind, as a glori-
ous heritage, the mortal grandeur of his character and
achievements.

CHARLES SUMNER.

[On seeing some pictures of the interior of his home.]

Only the casket left, the jewel gone
Whose noble presence filled these stately rooms,
And made this spot a shrine where pilgrims came —
Stranger and friend — to bend in reverence
Before the great, pure soul that knew no guile ;
To listen to the wise and gracious words
That fell from lips whose rare, exquisite smile
Gave tender beauty to the grand grave face.

Upon these pictured walls we see thy peers, —
Poet and saint and sage, painter and king, —
A glorious band ; — they shine upon us still ;
Still gleam in marble the enchanting forms
Whereon thy artist eye delighted dwelt ;
Thy fav'rite Psyche droops her matchless face.
Listening, methinks, for the beloved voice
Which nevermore on earth shall sound her praise.

All these remain, — the beautiful, the brave.
The gifted, silent ones; but thou art gone !
Fair is the world that smiles upon us now ;
Blue are the skies of June, balmy the air
That soothes with touches soft the weary brow ;
And perfect days glide into perfect nights,—
Moonlit and calm ; but still our grateful hearts
Are sad, and faint with fear,— for thou art gone !

Oh friend beloved, with longing, tear-filled eyes
We look up, up to the unclouded blue.
And seek in vain some answering sign from thee.
Look down upon us, guide and cheer us still
Frbm the serene height where thou dwellest now ;
Dark is the way without the beacon light
Which long and steadfastly thy hand upheld.
Oh, nerve with courage new the stricken hearts
Whose dearest hopes seem lost in losing thee !

Chari,ottk Forten Grimke.

THE AMERICAN NEGRO ACADEMY.

Organized Inarch 3th, 1897.

Rev. ALEXANDER CRUMMELL, Founder.

OBJECTS:

The Promotion of Literatqre, vScience axd Art,

The CUI.TURE of a Form of Inteli^ectual Taste,

The Fostering of Higher Education,

The Publication of Scholarly Works,

The Defense of the Negro Against Vicious Assaults.

PRESIDENT

ARCHIBALD H. GRIMKE.

VICE-PRESIDENTS,

Kelly Miller, J. R. Clifford

Rev. J. Albert Johnson Rev. Matthew Anderson

TREASURER,

REV. F. J. GRIMKE.

RECORDING SECRETARY,

ARTHUR U. CRAIG.

CORRESPONDING SECRETARY,

John W, Cromwell,
1815 13th St. N. W. Washington, D. C.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE,

KELLY MILLER, EDWARD C. WILLIAMS, J. E. MOORLAND,
REV. F. J. GRIMKE, EX-OFFicio, J. W. CROMWELL, ex-officio

R. L. Pendleton, Printer. 609 F St., N. W.

W46

^^-^"^

^

^ %.^" *

'^^^'^'

v'^-^

'^^' -^^

"•'• v<^ --- <-.

* ^^ '^. o^

=5°.

I* . » •

v^\*r'

'^«i-

C, vP

€ .-

' .<&^

\..^^^

'^^. ..^J* *'#^a^'. '^r?'^ A^ .>

; '^^ A^ *.^fe'- \ <^ *^

-^o^

UtRT

BOOKBIMDINC

r,rant\illt Fa
J an fet 198«